As we covered a few days ago, looking just at the manufacturing PMIs it is clear that the Eurozone economy is looking much stronger than that of the US. So here's a closer look at the surveys. Sometimes you see a surge in a particular economic indicator and it is not matched by equal or similar improvement in other indicators, so it is important to take a broader view. In this ChartBrief we look at the z-scores or normalized readings of 6 different surveys for the Eurozone and the USA.
A couple of things standout, first of all, the Eurozone strength is broad-based with virtually all of the surveys in agreement in terms of direction and magnitude. The composite of these surveys is notably at post-crisis highs, thus it is fair to say the Eurozone economy is looking good - the best it has in about 10 years. The US economic survey indicators have similarly seen a synchronized surge, but there are signs that it is starting to rollover as arguably things got a little over-hyped.
The Eurozone economy is looking good based on a range of different economic sentiment surveys, as noted in the latest weekly report, and conditions look the best since the global financial crisis.
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The various economic sentiment surveys for America underwent a big surge from a soft patch in early 2016 to multi-year highs on a number of metrics, but have now started to roll over.
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